Natives and Settlers: The Mennonite Invasion of Indian Territory

In their four centuries of history Mennonites have pioneered geographic frontiers on four
continents of the world. Beginning in 1683, European Mennonites began to migrate to North
America. For over two centuries thereafter, members of this Anabaptist group were found in the
vanguard of the western movement in the area of the present United States. After 1873,
thousands of Mennonites left the steppes of Russia for the prairies and plains of the United States
and Canada. Many of these German Russians participated in the settlement of the "Last
Frontiers" in the American West, including Oklahoma.

During much of the nineteenth century, present-day Oklahoma was designated as an exclusive
territory for American Indians, and even today more than sixty tribes are represented in the
population of the state. The eastern half of Indian Territory was the forced home of the Five
Civilized Tribes, driven out of the southeastern states beginning in 1830. The tragic removal of
the Cherokees, Chickasaws, Choctaws, Creeks, and Seminoles is a black chapter in our nation's
history.

Soon after the Civil War, nomadic Plains tribes were forced by government treaties to accept
reservation confinement. The reservation policy was adopted for the benefit of white farmers,
railroad builders, miners, and others who were anxious to move onto Indian hunting lands in
Kansas, Colorado, Nebraska, and the Dakotas. In the Treaties of Medicine Lodge in 1867 the
Kiowas, Comanches, Cheyennes, and Arapahos were assigned reservations in western Indian
Territory. Other tribes were soon thereafter located in the north central and northeastern parts of
the territory. The nomadic hunters were told to become settled farmers and homemakers, just like
the whites. The prevailing view was that the only way to "civilize" the Indians and turn them into
self-sufficient Christian citizens was to destroy tribal culture and Indian identity. This policy of
acculturation under duress had serious consequences for the native people.

The reservation system was implemented with a military campaign that resulted in the massacre
of Cheyenne Peace Chief Black Kettle on the Washita River on November 27, 1868. This
atrocity was led by George A. Custer and his Seventh Cavalry.1

Susanna Hirschler Haury and Samuel S. Haury

It was during the reservation years that the first Mennonites came to Oklahoma. In 1880, twelve
years after the Washita massacre, General Conference (GC) Mennonites began missionary work
on the Cheyenne and Arapaho reservation. Fifteen years after that, the Mennonite Brethren (MB)
established a mission among the Comanche Indians, placed on a reservation at the same time as
the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes. These were the first foreign mission programs for both
branches of Mennonites. The tribes they worked with were considered among the most warlike
of all the Plains Indians. At both places Mennonite missionaries were participants in events of
historic importance in tribal and Oklahoma history.

Samuel and Susanna Haury, the first GC missionaries, arrived at the Darlington Agency in May
1880. Thereafter a stream of missionaries, teachers, and other workers came to work in the
mission enterprise. Other denominations also sent missionaries, including Quakers, Methodists,
Episcopalians, Baptists, and Mormons; however, during the early decades the Mennonites carried
on the most extensive work among the two tribes. The government Indian agency was
administered by a Quaker, who eagerly encouraged the Mennonites to help him carry out the
government's new "peace policy" toward Indians. The task was daunting. The fact that they were
representatives of a Christian church did not automatically engender feelings of trust. The Indians
remembered too well that the man who led the charge at the Sand Creek Massacre in 1864, J. M.
Chivington, was an ordained Methodist minister.

The Haurys decided it was best to start working with the youth, educating them to walk the white
man's road, while at the same time teaching them the tenets of the Christian religion. A frame
mission and school building was erected to accommodate twenty-five Indian children and the
missionary family. The Indian agent in essence forced the parents to enroll their children. The
fledgling work suffered a severe setback when the school was destroyed in a tragic fire that took
the lives of the Haurys' infant son and three Indian children. But the work went on, and soon
expanded to include Cantonment, an abandoned military camp given to the peace church by the
government. Haury transferred to Cantonment where he established a mission and agricultural
school.

With the financial assistance of the government, a new school rose from the ashes at Darlington.
H. R. Voth, a recent immigrant from Russia, was placed in charge of the work at this site. In the
administration of his mission school Voth seems to have aligned himself closely with the
government policy of destroying Indian languages and culture. The educational efforts were
supplemented by sending Arapaho students to Mennonite communities in Kansas where they
lived and worked on farms while attending public school and the Mennonite Industrial School at
Krehbieltown, near Halstead.2

Although the Mennonites generally supported the government's assimilation program, there were
times when they sided with the Indians against agency decisions. For example, in the 1890s agent
A. E. Woodson, a non-Quaker, issued sweeping orders designed to break the power of the chiefs
and to end traditional ceremonies and customs. Missionary Rodolphe Petter wrote a letter
supporting Little Man, a Cheyenne who opposed Woodson's programs. The Indian agent
immediately warned Petter that if he was siding with the Indians, "I shall know where to place
you in the future."3

Eventually eleven mission stations were established by the Mennonites among the Cheyenne and
Arapaho tribes. In the two decades prior to 1900 more than one hundred workers were sent to
Indian Territory. Among the stations established were Shelly, Clinton, and Red Moon, up and
down the Washita River from where we are meeting today. But the harvest of souls was meager.
The memories of recent massacres and betrayals were too fresh to permit a ready acceptance of
the white man's religion. Some were more open to the indigenous rituals associated with the
peyote ceremonies, or the Ghost Dance prophecies of the coming of an Indian Messiah, along
with the return of the buffalo, and a return to life as it was in the days before the coming of the
white man. This was a period of transition, confusion, and turmoil in Indian society. First they
were thrust on reservations, where virtually nobody knew the rules. Then, less than twenty years
later, the reservations were broken up in favor of the allotment policy. Under this, Indians were
scattered all over western Oklahoma on small parcels of land to make room for non-Indian
homesteaders, which disrupted mission activities. To successfully introduce a new religion to
people living under such chaotic conditions was virtually impossible. Another deterrent to
progress may have been the perception that the missionaries were tools of the government's
forced assimilation policy, a policy deeply resented by many tribal members.

It was eight years before the Mennonite missionaries could claim their first baptized Indian
convert. Her name was Maggie Leonard, a seventeen-year-old mixed-blood Arapaho. According
to James Juhnke, after two decades of mission work, only about forty converts had been
baptized. Thereafter, he indicated, the number of conversions continued to be disappointing.4 It
was twelve years before the Mennonite Brethren gained their first Comanche convert at Post Oak
Mission. Mission boards of all denominations at that time agreed that the plains Indians were the
most difficult "heathen" to Christianize.

Maggie Leonard

Two missionaries gained wide scholarly acclaim for their contributions to our knowledge of
Indian cultures and languages. Rodolphe Petter, a Swiss Mennonite who served at Cantonment
from 1890-1916, put the Cheyenne language into written form and produced the first Cheyenne-English dictionary. H. R. Voth went to great pains to study the Arapaho language and folkways
even while trying to destroy both in his mission boarding school. Ironically, the German
Mennonites at the same time were fiercely determined to preserve their own language and culture
in America. Voth wrote scholarly articles describing Arapaho and Hopi culture based on his
investigations in Oklahoma and Arizona. But he got into trouble with the Hopis and his mission
board when he sold valuable artifacts he had collected to the Field Museum in Chicago.5

Donald Berthrong, the leading living authority on the Southern Cheyenne, evaluated the GC
missionary work as follows: "With a single exception, Cheyennes and Arapahos respected
Mennonite missionaries because of the deep concern they displayed not only for their spiritual
but also their temporal welfare." In addition to their preaching and education programs, he said,
they "sought to instill a work ethic among the tribal people." Two Arapahos educated in
Mennonite schools became tribal chiefs. "The sometimes stern pastors continued urging
Cheyennes and Arapahos to educate their children, live in clean houses, farm their land, and
abandon tribal ceremonies, the latter with limited success. More successfully than other sectarian
missionaries, the Mennonites lived and worked among tribesmen frequently protecting them
from their rapacious non-Indian neighbors."6

After twenty years of reservation life and programs, the government concluded that the policy
was not leading to Indian assimilation and self-sufficiency. Thus they came up with a new policy.
It was spelled out in the Dawes Allotment Act of 1887, which brought an end to reservations in
western Oklahoma. Under the provisions, all Indians were to be allotted up to 160 acres of their
jointly owned reservation lands as private property. The law did not parcel out all the land to the
Indians. The government decided to take some of it and give it to the whites. That portion was
referred to as "excess" reservation land. Of course, it was "excess" only in the eyes of non-Indians—not the tribal members from whom the land was taken.

Making Indians independent farmers, and scattering them out more, it was now rationalized,
would be the best way to destroy tribal communal life and "Americanize" the first Americans.
The opposition of tribal leaders like Red Moon was ignored.

While the allotment policy was unfolding, Congress authorized the opening of a portion of
Oklahoma to non-Indians that had not been designated as part of any Indian reservation. It had
earlier been taken from the Five Tribes' holdings, and was referred to as the Oklahoma District,
or the Unassigned Lands. A presidential proclamation declared that the District would be opened
to homesteaders on April 22, 1889. This was the first of a series of "runs" that followed. To give
equal opportunity to all persons interested in getting 160 acres of free land, it was decided to
settle the area by a novel procedure—a land run, or race. People could line up at the borders, and
when the signal was given, the race was on, and whoever got to a given quarter-section first
would get the land.

Fifty thousand people participated in the Run of 1889. They raced on foot, on horseback, on
wagons, and on a train. By evening nearly every homestead claim and town lot had been taken.
Some settlers sneaked in ahead of time, selected a choice homestead and then hid out until the
rush approached. They then put down their stake and got it "proved up" before others got there.
Those who entered the territory sooner than they legally could do so were the original Oklahoma
"Sooners." Prior to the time that football became the established religion in Oklahoma,
"Sooners" was a derogatory term.

Every April school children across Oklahoma re-enact the Land Run of '89, and there are all
kinds of activities celebrating this exciting event. Jerald Walker, a Creek-Cherokee
Indian, has provided an alternative view of the land runs. Indian people, he wrote, find it
"difficult to celebrate an invasion. It was a perfectly legal invasion from the non-Indian
perspective, but nothing more than another land grab by property hungry non-Indians from the
Native American perspective."7 If Mennonite participants in the Runs had any moral or ethical
qualms about acquiring lands taken from Indians, often by deceit, intimidation, and bribery, they
did not let it deter them.

There were only a few Mennonites that participated in the Run of '89. One of these was my
maternal grandfather, Kornelius Zielke, born in the Waldheim village of Molotschna Colony,
Russia. In 1875 he emigrated to near Galva in central Kansas. Seven years later he married
Aganetta Ediger, who also came from Russia. By 1889 the young couple had two children, and
struggled financially. From a friend, Kornelius learned about the chance to run for free land in
the Indian Territory, and decided to make the race. On the morning of the opening day he and his
brother-in-law, John Ediger, lined up on the northern boundary waiting for the signal to start. The
land had been surveyed into 160 acre claims with quarter and section markers set. At high noon
the signal came and Zielke and Ediger took off. I do not know whether they went on foot, by
wagon, or on horseback. But both succeeded in staking claims to homesteads located three miles
east of present Hennessey. They traveled only about two and one-half miles before they hit pay
dirt. They paid a small filing fee, registered their claims and returned to Kansas grateful to God
for his protection and for the opportunity to begin a new life in Oklahoma.

The Zielkes did not immediately prosper in the new land. In 1891 when my mother was born,
they were still living in a dugout. Nearly destitute, Zielke walked all the way from Hennessey to
the Galva area, a distance of over 170 miles, to borrow money from relatives to provide food for
his family. I am sure he enjoyed the run into Oklahoma much more than he enjoyed that walk
out. In 1898, because there were too few Mennonites to establish a church, and because they felt
isolated from friends and relatives, the Zielkes sold out and moved to Corn.

Mennoville church

Another small group of Mennonites acquired homesteads in 1889 near the western boundary of
the Unassigned Lands, not far from the Darlington Mission. I believe that at least four
Mennonites made the Run from this location. They were Joel Sprunger, Peter Isaac, Isaac Penner,
and Anna Penner. Their homesteads were located five to eight miles north of El Reno. Soon
about sixteen families, including some missionaries from Darlington, established Mennoville, the
first Mennonite Church in Oklahoma. Their sanctuary, constructed in 1893, remains the oldest
existing Mennonite church building in Oklahoma, although services were discontinued in 1953.
For many years it was on the National Register of Historic Places, and served as a landmark on
Highway 81 north of El Reno. When it was improperly moved to a historic park in El Reno, it
lost its National Register designation.8

On April 19, 1892, the three and one-half million "excess" acres of the Cheyenne-Arapaho
Reservation were opened to homesteaders. By that date the approximately 3,300 Cheyennes and
Arapahos had selected their allotments. These allotments, the government said, would be the
vehicle to Indian progress and self-sufficiency. However, studies show that by the early 1930s
two-thirds of all land allotted to Indians under the Dawes Act had fallen into the hands of non-Indians. In too many instances unscrupulous whites took advantage of Indians unschooled in
financial matters and cheated them out of their lands for virtually nothing. And in too many cases
the Bureau of Indian Affairs and other government officials did nothing to stop such abuses.

Mennonite settlements after Cheyenne-Arapaho opening

Much of the land in western Oklahoma was regarded as unfit for farming, thus only about 25,000
participated in the Land Run of 1892. Many homesteads could still be claimed months after the
opening day. Also, this land was not free. Settlers were required to pay $1.50 an acre for their
quarter sections.

Included among the earliest homesteaders in western Oklahoma were a host of hopeful
Mennonites, most of whom were recent Germans from Russia who had originally settled in
Kansas. The Mennonite settlements in the Cheyenne-Arapaho country were initially concentrated
in three counties: Blaine, Washita, and Custer. In Blaine County, three separate communities
emerged: Cooper, Geary, and Okeene.

Rev. Cornelius Grunau and about twenty co-religionists settled in the Cooper area. They
organized a Mennonite Brethren church in the winter of 1892-93. Although the exact founding
date is obscure, this apparently was the first MB church in Oklahoma. The church membership
had more than doubled by 1896, but thereafter it began to decline as many left the region because
of crop failures. Indeed, it appears that fertility of the Mennonite people at Cooper far exceed that
of the soil. For example, John Janzen and his wife could raise only meager crops of wheat but
managed to produce a bumper crop of sixteen children. Somehow they managed to cram them all
into a small three room house. By 1902 the Mennonite community had dwindled to such an
extent that the church was disbanded.

Mennonites helped to establish Okeene and formed the Ebenfeld MB church. Many of the
settlers came from the Ebenfeld community in central Kansas. The Okeene church still functions
today.

General Conference Mennonites helped establish the community of Geary, originally called
Garden Plains. A number of settlers came from Halstead, Kansas, but others arrived from nearby
mission stations. In 1898 the settlers loaded their country church onto four wagons and hauled it
into town, thereby establishing the first church in Geary. It was only in recent years that the
church closed its doors.9

The Mennonite movement into Washita County was instigated by the reports of General
Conference missionaries in western Oklahoma. John J. Kliewer established the Shelly Indian
Mission on the Washita River in 1889. His reports to Mennonite communities in Kansas told of
rich bottom lands and fertile virgin prairies, and urged families to come join him after the land
was opened to non-Indians.

Although the land on which Shelly Mission and his home were located had already been granted
to the Mennonite church, Kliewer decided to have it registered in his name. Avoiding any
potential charges of "Soonerism," he left the mission on the morning of the Run and lined up on
the border at Seger Colony, eight miles to the east. When the signal was given to begin the race,
he hurried back home and drove a stake in his yard. His brother Henry also filed a claim. Sixteen
more Mennonite heads of families filed claims in 1892. This vanguard group set into motion a
wave of migration that led to the development of the largest Mennonite settlement in Oklahoma.
One band of eight homesteaders filed claims along Coffee Creek, west of present Corn, in
October 1892. They followed a route from Buhler, Kansas to Caldwell, and then on south to
Cooper. From there they journeyed southwestwardly to Shelly. It was a two-week trip by wagons.
Henry H. Flaming, who later became a respected MB minister, was in the group, although he was
too young to file a claim. He became a squatter on a quarter section across the road from his
father, hoping no one would file a claim to it before he reached the legal filing age of twenty-one.
No one did. And then he did.

Most of the Washita County Mennonites came from Reno, Harvey, and Marion counties in
Kansas. All had been in the United States for less than twenty years; a few for less than one
year.10 One group came from a further distance—continuing an unbelievable trek that had taken
them from their homes in the Ukraine, the Kuban, and the Volga to Turkestan, and then later to
America. These were the followers of the charismatic but misguided Claasz Epp, who in 1880
had led them on a pilgrimage into Central Asia to make ready for the Second Coming of Christ.
Instead of meeting the returned Messiah, they met disillusionment, destitution, and death. My
paternal great-grandparents were caught up in this strange venture, and my great-grandmother
lies buried somewhere in the stark desert expanse near Tashkent. Thirty-eight families who
survived that debacle came to the United States in 1884, settling in Kansas and Nebraska. Ten
years later a number of them took up homesteads near Shelly. Thirty-six became charter
members of the Herold Mennonite Church, located southwest of present Corn. Michael Klaassen,
a veteran of the Great Trek, served as minister. With their own land and a church, they thought
that finally they could settle down for good. Unfortunately, it was not to be. During World War I,
Klaassen, an outspoken religious pacifist, received so many threats from superpatriots in the area
that he fled to Canada. About fifty of his fellow church members soon followed.11

Corn — spelled Korn until 1918 when it was anglicized due to World War I pressure —
gradually replaced Shelly as the economic, social, and religious hub of an expanding and thriving
community. Founded in 1903 (post office in 1896), the town grew up around the Mennonite
Brethren Church. The congregation's first church, built in the spring of 1894, was a dugout
twenty by forty feet with sides built up a few feet with sod. In 1902 the MB General Conference
convened in Korn, with, reportedly, three thousand people from Canada and the US in
attendance. The church continued to grow until it reached its peak membership of 720 in 1924. In
1905 the Bessie MB Church was established for the benefit of members living on the western
fringe of the large settlement.

On August 24, 1894, twenty families from the Alexanderwohl and Hoffnungsau communities in
Kansas organized Bergthal, the first General Conference church in the area. Soon there were
three additional GC congregations: Herold, mentioned earlier, Sichar, and Salem.

And northeast of Corn in Custer County, the Krimmer Mennonite Brethren (KMB) established a
church. Gordon Friesen, novelist, defender of radical causes, and friend of Woody Guthrie, grew
up in this church community. His book, Flamethrowers, centers on a young Kansas Mennonite
who rebels against what he perceives to be the stifling influence of Mennonite culture. Menno
Duerksen, another writer and Friesen's cousin, also came from this tiny KMB community. A
United Press International correspondent and newspaper reporter, he wrote a revealing book of
personal stories that insightfully pictured what his life was like in a very restrictive Mennonite
environment.12

Between 1893-1920 eight Mennonite churches—GC, MB, KMB—were organized within an
eight mile radius of Corn. Three are still active: Bessie (now located in Cordell), Corn, and
Herold. Based on my study of the federal census, there were 891 Mennonites living in the greater
Corn community in 1900. By 1910 the Mennonite population had grown to 1,730. These figures
are based on my identification of "Mennonite" names and, thus, are not infallible.

There seems to have been little interaction between the Mennonite settler community and the
natives of the area, especially after the Shelly Mission was closed. On the other hand, Comanche
delegations from Post Oak Mission frequently attended MB conferences, singing conventions,
and Sunday School conventions when held at Corn or Fairview. Over the years, some Comanche
students attended the Corn Bible Academy, established by the MB Church in 1902.

The Old Order Amish also sought land in western Oklahoma. A few families arrived in 1893 but
the major influx came after 1898. By statehood (1907) there were over 100 Amish scattered
between Thomas and Hydro.

The largest Land Run took place on September 16, 1893, when the Cherokee Outlet was opened
to homesteaders. More than 100,000 people raced to claim a quarter section of the rich prairies.
There were roughly 36,000 claims available for settlement, which meant that only one-third of
those who made the Run would be able to get land. People lined up along the boundaries weeks
and even months before the opening. 1893 saw the beginning of a four-year drought. It was an
extremely hot summer. On the days before the Run the temperatures reached 108 degrees. Fifty
cases of heat stroke were reported, with at least ten deaths. There was a great shortage of water
for people and horses.

When the signal was given to start the race, everything was helter skelter, pell mell. Rigs broke
down and horses stumbled and fell, but the thundering mass moved on. Several men and women
were thrown from their horses and trampled to death at the start of the race. Four men were shot
and killed by soldiers for starting on the Outlet before the hour of noon arrived. Before the Run,
the "Strip" was burned bare in some places to keep Sooners from hiding in the grass.

Mennonites again were in the front ranks of those who surged into the newly opened territory.
They played a significant role in the founding and early development of a dozen or more
communities, including Deer Creek, Fairview, Goltry, Kremlin, Lahoma, Lucien, Medford,
Meno, North Enid, Orienta, and Ringwood. Those who staked claims had to pay $1.50-$2.50 per
acre, depending on the zone in which they settled. Most Mennonites settled in the middle zone
where the price was $2.00 an acre. Not all of the Mennonite land seekers were successful in
filing claims. Ben Decker stated that he knew of several who had lost choice lands because they
were not willing to fight it out with challengers who falsely asserted prior claims. Martin Just,
Henry Bartel, John and Will Hein, and Fred and Carl Wichert, all from the Ebenfeld community
in Kansas, gathered at Caldwell a week ahead of the Run. After the race began they traveled all
afternoon until nightfall searching for unclaimed land. They found none, and were forced to
return to Kansas empty-handed. Several returned a few months later and bought up
relinquishments near Fairview. A number of Mennonites acquired land in Oklahoma by this
method.13

According to one estimate, eighty-five percent of the Mennonites in the Outlet had lived in or
near Marion County, Kansas, before moving to Oklahoma. When the rush ended, the larger
Mennonite concentrations were found west of Enid in the Meno-Ringwood-Goltry area; north
and south of Fairview; near Medford; and in the North Enid-Kremlin area. A sizeable number of
the settlers around Meno, Ringwood, and Goltry were Polish Mennonites who previously resided
near Canton and Moundridge, Kansas. The Canton Mennonite Church lost about 150 members in
the last half of the 1890s, most of whom came to Oklahoma. The New Hopedale Mennonite
Church at Meno soon became the largest General Conference congregation. The founder of
Meno, David Koehn, meant to name the town Menno, after Menno Simons, but in filling out the
post office application papers, he apparently left out one "n."14

In 1895 Fairview MBs built two churches to accommodate the wide-spread settlement: Nord
(North) and Süd (South) Hoffnungsfeld (Hopefield). The combined membership was 171. Rev.
Jacob Becker, a founder of the Mennonite Brethren Church in Russia in 1861, served at the
South Fairview MB Church.

A small number of Russian Mennonites who had originally settled in Henderson, Nebraska,
participated in the Run of '93. Severe drought conditions apparently drove them to look to the
Enid area for a new start, only to find that it was just as dry there. Others, including Peter Regier,
leader of the Henderson MB Church, followed in 1897 and bought relinquishments north of
Enid. The long drought had finally ended by the time Regier arrived, and he became a big booster
of the Enid area. Writing in the Zionsbote, he declared that "the land is as good as any in
Nebraska and the climate is much better." And, in an apparent use of "ministerial license," he
claimed that "the summer nights are always cool with refreshing breezes." With the arrival of
Regier, the North Enid MB Church was organized April 5, 1897.

Medford and nearby Deer Creek became a center for both MB and GC immigrants from Russia.
In 1899 John F. Harms, one of the most influential figures in MB history, settled on a farm two
and one-half miles northeast of Medford. A farmer, historian, and ordained minister, he printed
and edited the Zionsbote, a weekly German newspaper widely read by MBs in the United States
and Canada. The paper was printed on a press located on his farm. It was later moved to
Hillsboro, Kansas. The GC church established at Deer Creek survives to this day.

Jet, Manchester, and Newkirk were settlement areas for the "Old" Mennonites. Church of God in
Christ Mennonites (Holdeman) founded churches near Fairview and Chickasha. All told, twenty
Mennonite churches were established in the Cherokee Outlet territory between 1893 and 1907.

Mennonites continued to search for land in Oklahoma even after the major land openings. Some
tried to eke out a living in the arid Panhandle, called No Man's Land until 1890 when it was
attached to Oklahoma. The first to arrive came in the early 1900s. Most came from Buhler and
Inman, Kansas, but some from Medford and Fairview. This was free land for those willing to
take a gamble. The Hooker, Adams, Balko, and Turpin communities included GCs, MBs, and
KMBs. These Panhandle Mennonites were a hardy breed. Once they got a toehold in the sod, not
even the fierce dust storms of the "Dirty Thirties" could drive them out.

Other GC and MB Mennonites found their way to Gotebo and Eakly, drawing settlers from
adjacent Washita County. Mennonites did not move into eastern Oklahoma until after
statehood.15

The Mennonite presence and influence in southwestern Oklahoma was extended with the
founding of Post Oak Mission in 1895-96. Established among the Comanche Indians near
Indiahoma, it was the first foreign mission of the Mennonite Brethren Church of North America.
The first missionary appointed to the field was Henry Kohfeld, a teacher from Hillsboro, Kansas.
His main accomplishment was to gain permission from Chief Quanah Parker to build a "Jesus
House" on his land. After twelve years of devoted but generally unproductive effort, he was
replaced by Abraham J. and Magdalena Becker from Fairview. Born in Kuban, Russia, Abraham
was the son of MB founder Jacob Becker. Whereas Kohfeld could not claim a single baptized
convert, Becker baptized seven in his first year. By the time he retired 40 years later, he had
baptized 430 converts at Post Oak.

A friendly relationship developed between the Beckers and the renowned Chief Quanah Parker,
despite the fact that Quanah was a polygamist and a proponent of the peyote religion. The chief
had the grave of his white mother, Cynthia Ann Parker, removed from Texas to the Post Oak
Mission cemetery, and urged his people to follow his mother's religion. However, according to
Magdalena Becker, he never gave up his old religion. After Quanah's death, To-pay, one of his
seven wives, and several other family members joined the mission church.

Critical to the success of Post Oak was the service of Magdalena as field matron in the Indian
Service. For twenty-eight years she trained Indian women in the skills of housekeeping, child
care, cooking, sewing, and health care. Fluent in the Comanche language, her work broke down
barriers and made the Comanches amenable to the Beckers' religious message. According to
William T. Hagan, a leading authority on the Comanches, the Beckers developed Post Oak
Mission into "arguably, the most successful one in western Oklahoma." In 1957, over the
protests of many Comanches, the mission and historic cemetery were relocated in Indiahoma to
make room for a projected Fort Sill missile range. Today, the Post Oak MB Church is a self-administering congregation.16

By the end of the territorial period in Oklahoma, a distinct and vibrant Mennonite culture had
taken root. When Oklahoma entered the Union in 1907, there were forty-four Mennonite and
Amish churches in the former Indian Territory. The various branches were represented as
follows: 22 GC; 12 MB; 3 MC; 2 KMB; 2 Holdeman; 2 Old Order Amish; and 1 Amish-Mennonite. Most Mennonites viewed the future with an air of confidence and optimism. But in
the wake of the strong anti-German and anti-pacifist prejudice that manifested itself during
World War I, many began to submerge or mask their ethnic and religious identity. They faced
growing Americanization pressures similar to what the Indians were going through: pressures to
adopt a new language, new customs, and identify with mainstream cultural expectations. Interest
in preserving their history and distinctive culture declined. Fortunately, since about the 1960s
there has been a growing interest among Mennonites to trace their ancestral roots and to
rediscover their unique and remarkable heritage.

In 2000 there were 45 Mennonite and Amish congregations in the state, virtually the same
number as in 1907. However, only a dozen or so of the original churches remained.
Representation by branches was as follows: 14 GC; 13 MB; 5 Old Order Amish; 4 Holdeman; 2
MC; 1 Beachy Amish; 1 Kleine Gemeinde; and 5 others.17 The statistics include five American
Indian Mennonite churches whose origins date back to the mission period. Five Indian
churches—Cheyenne, Arapaho, Comanche—where over a century later God is still worshiped
and obeyed. Any evaluation of the Mennonite mission endeavors among the Native Americans in
Oklahoma should not overlook that fact.

Historically, Oklahoma Mennonite life revolved around three institutions: family, church and
school. The essential element that sustained all three was land. Of course, land— reverence for
Mother Earth—is important in Indian cultures as well. Virtually all Oklahoma Mennonites can
still trace their family heritage directly to the land. However, today the vast majority are not
farmers. If agriculture has been the foundation of Mennonite culture, can the historic Mennonite
values, beliefs, and traditions survive in a highly urbanized and secular society? Sadly, a tide of
social, cultural, and religious conformity is eroding our distinctive and unique Mennonite
identity. It will take a consistent effort by the current generation to preserve the
Anabaptist/Mennonite heritage in a recognizable form and to successfully pass it on to the next
generation. That is our charge.

Marvin E. Kroeker

Marvin E. Kroeker is professor of emeritus of history at East Central University, Ada, Oklahoma. He has published actively on topics of the American West and Mennonites. Among his works are Comanches and Mennonites on the Oklahoma Plains (1997).

Notes

Good analyses of the reservation system in western Oklahoma are found in Donald Berthrong, The Cheyenne and Arapaho Ordeal: Reservation and Agency Life in the Indian Territory, 1875-1907 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1976); and William T. Hagan, United States-Comanche Relations (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1976).

James C. Juhnke, "General Conference Mennonite Missions to the American Indians in the Late Nineteenth Century," Mennonite Quarterly Review (April 1980), 118. Juhnke provides a scholarly and generally critical evaluation of the GC mission enterprise in Oklahoma.

Juhnke, 130.

Berthrong, personal letter to author, October 24, 1988.

Jerald Walker, "The Difficulty of Celebrating an Invasion," in Davis D. Joyce, ed., "An Oklahoma I Had Never Seen Before": Alternative Views of Oklahoma History (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1994), 18.

John W. Arn, The Herold Mennonite Church: 70th Anniversary, 1899-1969 (North Newton: Mennonite Press,1969), 5-17. For a more detailed account of Michael Klaassen's travails during World War I see Marvin E. Kroeker, "'In Death You Shall Not Wear It Either': The Persecution of Mennonite Pacifists in Oklahoma" in Joyce, ed., "An Oklahoma I Had Never Seen Before," 80-100.

Douglas Hale, The Germans from Russia in Oklahoma (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1980), 37; David Haury, Prairie People: A History of the Western District Conference (Newton: Faith and Life Press, 1981), 131-134.

For the history of Post Oak Mission see Kroeker, Comanches and Mennonites on the Oklahoma Plains (Winnipeg: Kindred Productions, 1997). The Hagan quote is found in the "Foreword" he wrote for the above book.